Thumper was born on January 19th, 2007. After an emergency c-section with Bear and much stress and anxiety over having a VBAC, Thumper's entry into the world turned out to be free of complication and actually rather pleasant (thanks to an excellent epidural.) As expected, his birth was the high point of our year. I just didn't expect it to be the ONLY high point of our year.
2 1/2 weeks after Thumper was born, a psychologist observed Bear for what we thought was a speech delay and posed the question "How much do you know about autism?" I thought she was just making conversation. Turns out, she was talking about Bear.
The rest of 2007 was filled with visits to specialists and emergency rooms. At his 1 month appointment, Thumper was found to have a heart murmer. It was most likely while we were at Children's Hospital getting his EKG that he acquired bronchiolitis, for which he had to be hospitalized. Immediately after he came home, Bear came down with a stomach virus that lasted 10 days. (10 Days of throwing up and diarrhea, during which we learned that stomach acid can bleach mommy's favorite turquoise gap t-shirt white.) In June,Thumper had a stomach virus for which we visited an immediate care clinic, where he picked up an MRSA; Bear had his speech and developmental delays; Not So Surly Dad injured his back playing soccer, then stupidly went and did it again; I myself racked up emergency room points with 2 MRSAs, suffering an acute allergic reaction to the heinous antibiotics required to treat an MRSA. Thumper had a rash-causing food allergy for which I eliminated nearly everything from my diet over the course of 2 months before figuring out that cashews were the culprit. We were audited by the IRS. Through it all, I tried to maintain a sense of humor and perspective - at least we aren't homeless, nobody is dying, things could be worse - but by the time a tree fell on my car in October, I was ready to write off 2007 completely. I drifted through the Christmas season, throwing up decorations the week after Thanksgiving and dragging my family to every Christmas event I could find, all the while never really feeling the Christmas spirit. I invited the families for Christmas, then did all of my shopping online, hired someone to clean my house, ordered Christmas dinner, and when it was over wished I could rewind and do it one more time with feeling.
As New Year's drew near, I became more and more anxious. Although we were invited to my sister's house to celebrate, I just wanted to hide out until it was over. Bring on 2008! Then, the final insult: all 4 of us came down with colds, and Bear with pink eye. Happy New Year!
We went to the party and even though I was worried about drunk drivers the entire night, we all survived 2007. Now, 10 days into 2008, nobody has required a trip to the emergency room. Although a tree did fall on my parent's house, none have fallen on ours. This is already shaping up to be a good year. I'd better go knock on wood.
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